Economics and Technologies

Community-based alternatives for production, consumption, and exchange

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This section features stories of initiatives that help to create an alternative to the dominant neo-liberal or state-dominated economy. These include: localisation of economic activity with democratic control, producer and consumer collectives, local currencies and trade, non-monetised exchage and the gift economy, ecologically sensitive products and processes, macro-economic concepts that respect ecological limits, and approaches to human well-being that go beyond growth, GDP and other narrow measures and indicators.

What we do not feature are superficial and false solutions, such as market and technological fixes for problems that are deeply social and political, or more generally, ‘green growth’ kind of approaches that only tinker around with the existing system.

Environmental & Economic Sustainability, Social Harmony and Social Transmutation : an example towards Self-rule/Swaraj

On an average, around one hundred people worked daily for around one and a half years to dig the canal through the mountain.

Amid fund crunch, CGNet Swara eyes shift to Bluetooth radio tech

Under the Digital India campaign, optical fibre cables are being laid at the village level. That makes it possible for “Bluetooth radio" to work.

Weaving harmonious threads of change

Women of a small village in Uttar Pradesh are weaving not just colorful yarn but also communal harmony in their region.

A Gandhian in Nagaland

The story of an extraordinary woman from an Ao Naga village who embraced Gandhian thought in the charged 1950s

Kutch’s Water Champions In The Making

Local youth, with some amount of training and support, can implement solutions for the community if they understand and manage local water problems.

Fishers turn climate scientists to save beaches

A community-managed shoreline monitoring project is tracking changes to beaches to safeguard an ecosystem that is vital for fisherfolk

Village women clean only freshwater lake in Odisha, revive tourism

Under the Cloth for Work initiative steered by Goonj, 30 women from Malabiharpur village took up the task of cleaning 2,000 sq ft area of the lake.

Banni pastoralists see success in battle for survival

“After 10 years of use, a Nano car would go to Bhangarwala (mechanical waste collector) whereas Banni Buffalo will produce at least four new buffaloes,”

The market beyond drip

System of Water for Agricultural Rejuvenation method requires one-fourth of the water that drip does, to adequately irrigate fruit trees and vegetable-bearing plants.